Karolina Magnusson Murray’s piece, The Magic Shop anchors this exhibition. The artist has taken this known technique Magic Shop as a conceptual point of departure transforming the space into an 18th Century Medical style shop that is only open for men in their 50’s and 60’s, in which they can purchase human qualities. Her aim is to re-examine the worth of self-help and therapy as a motivation for the creation of Fine Art. As money is unacceptable, the customer and shopkeeper must find the appropriate remuneration for the purchase. Remuneration is usually in the form of qualities or facets of the self that need to be relinquished in order for the purchased item to be truly effective, or positive qualities that the store wishes to stock, and with which the customer is sufficiently endowed that he can afford to surrender some of that quality.

From the 23rd to 27th of April The Magic Shop will be open, and the xvi collective of artists will establish a welcoming Living Room/Salon environment. The xvi is a multi-disciplined collective engaging in a wide range of media including performance, painting, video and photography. The artists create work surrounding, gender, age, intimate relationships and what feminism means to them today. They further explore the various roles they take on in their daily lives (such as mother, father, daughter, housewife, author, artist), how these roles affect their mental health and the ways in which they inform the work the artists make.

There will be scheduled lunchtime talks, discussions, stories by local figures and feminists as well as performances by Eti Wade and Caro Halford; the local community will also be invited to contribute. The exhibition will be an open environment to facilitate dynamic engagement between different ages and cultures and further examine identity, social isolation, and intimacy, blurring the boundaries between audience, performer, reality and performance